TikTok Shopping Is Booming in Indonesia ⇥ restofworld.org

Aisyah Llewellyn, Rest of World:

It’s been TikTok’s ambition to boost its vast audience into a moneymaking shopping arm, TikTok Shop, for two years now. That effort is being stymied in the U.S. by concerns of a potential countrywide ban, and had collapsed in the U.K. last year under a cloud of missed targets and management concerns. But TikTok Shop is sweeping across Indonesia, the company’s second-biggest market behind the U.S. — home to an estimated 110 million users, according to consultancy DataReportal.

A counterpoint to my speculation last year that the supposed reinvention of shopping is unlikely to pan out after the failure of Amazon’s Dash buttons, and direct-to-consumer brands opening physical storefronts. There is a caveat, though: Llewellyn says some of these DIY shopping channels are streaming constantly for eighteen hours a day.